4th Ward Alderpuppet Jim Allegretti was the topic of an article in last week’s Herald-Advocate that deserves special mention – not just for what it says about Allegretti himself, but for how it reflects on his political lord and master, Mayor Howard “Let’s Make A Deal” Frimark.
In “Alderman: Work interferes with budget meetings” (March 19), the H-A pointed out that for the fourth straight year he’s been in office, Allegretti has missed the City Council’s annual Saturday budget workshop. His excuse: He works on Saturday afternoons when the workshops are held.
We don’t begrudge anybody making a living, and a lot of people in Park Ridge work Saturdays and even Sundays. In a tough economy, many of us are just darn happy to have a job that requires Saturday and/or Sunday hours.
But public service requires more than just phoning it in; and we already have seen another of Frimark’s Alderpuppets, Robert Ryan (5th Ward), get well-deserved criticism from the H-A for having the worst attendance of anybody on the City Council despite having the least responbilities of any member. So the last thing we need is yet another alderpuppet joining the MIA ranks, even so predictable a Frimark “yes”-man as Jimmy A.
Allegretti’s missing budget workshops may be even more problematic than Ryan’s absences, however, if only because he might be the biggest spendthrift on the Council – which is saying a lot when he’s surrounded by the likes of Alderpuppet Don “Air Marshall” Bach (3rd Ward), who was willing to throw $2.4 million of our money at Frimark campaign contributor Napleton Cadillac weeks before it announced it was closing; Ryan, who never met a consultant’s study on which he wouldn’t spend bushels of City funds; and Alderpuppet Rich “Richie D” DiPietro, who has been mindlessly rubber-stamping City giveaways of our tax dollars since before the City’s 2002 waste of $650,000 on a Peotone airport.
Allegretti, you might remember, also is perhaps the biggest cheerleader for a new multi-million dollar police station. Heck, he even opposes any kind of advisory referendum on a new cop shop because he thinks he was elected to make decisions like that without citizen input. And he also has been a strong opponent of reinstating the City’s debt ceiling – a voluntary cap on how much debt the City can undertake. When it comes to fiscal responsibility, Allegretti makes drunken sailors look positively frugal.
So when Allegretti misses a budget workshop, it’s a lot like an illiterate missing a reading lesson – or an alcoholic skipping an AA session.
Allegretti, however, understands at least one type of money matter: making sure Mayor Frimark’s re-election committee is well funded. Which is why, just last week, Allegretti added another $500 to the $1,000 he previously contributed, making him (at least for the time being) the single biggest reported contributor to Frimark’s campaign – even bigger than usual suspects like James Davlin ($1,000), Bredemann Toyota ($1,000), Joe Dickerson ($500), Owen Hayes ($500) and Marilyn Goll ($500); and newest “big-hitter” Joseph Chiczewski ($1,000), a real estate guy who gives his address as 505 N. Lake Shore Drive in Chicago.
Being Frimark’s lapdog apparently doesn’t come cheap. But in a State like Illinois, where pay-to-play politics is the rule rather than the exception, we can’t help but wonder whether continued lapdog status is the only thing Allegretti expects in return for his big-bucks contribution to our “Let’s Make A Deal” mayor.
13 comments so far
This once again points out just how sick of a city government we have. Frimark surrounds himself with yes men who have spent us into near oblivion and want to keep spending on something as worthless as a new police station that is proven unnecessary with every passing day.
And Frimark and his puppets have the nerve to tell us a new station won’t raise our taxes when we already have budget deficits and can’t afford to pave our streets or stop the flooding.
Perhaps it’s the term “workshop” that has them confused. I guess they could interprit that as “optional.” Perhaps the word manditory should be interjected.
MANDITORY BUDGET WORKSHOP, would be much less confusing.
Allegretti, Ryan, Carey, Bach.
ALL handpicked by the Mayor.
How are we in this mess? How was this allowed to happen.
Sad
Let’s not forget DiPietro, who wasn’t actually handpicked by Frimark but who has pretty much sucked up to every mayor Park Ridge has had (Frimark included) in the years he’s been on the city council, and who has made some pretty sizable in-kind contributions to Frimark for printing.
DiPietro hasn’t done jack about flooding in the mannor, or about anything else other than what Wietecha, Marous and Frimark tell him to do. The guy’s a joke and has always been a joke.
Except for Frank Wsol (on occasion, when he’s not shilling for the new police station), it’s Frimark’s Council and the Special Interests v. Dave Schmidt and the Taxpayers of Park Ridge.
City finances are in the tank, and I can’t tell whether that Lambesis woman and Allegretti are dancing the bankrupt-the-city tango or just drinking the same flavor Kool-Aid.
Isn’t Chiczewski on the condo board in the new Uptown development? What’s that all about?
anon 12:50:
I cannot verify this information but on another blog there were statments that the Gentlemen you reference owns a condo in the new development.
A check of the MSN white pages directory lists no “Chiczewski” as residing in Park Ridge.
Punch up another $1,000 for Davlin, making him a member of Howard’s $2,000 club.
PD:
As I said I could not verify it. Below is where I got the information.
ParkRidgeUnderground said…
Anon@4:48 —
Interesting degrees of separation you’ve noted.
That real estate guy is Joseph Chicnewski, of Joseph Real Estate at 505 N. Lake Shore Dr. in Chicago.
However, that real estate guy also appears to be an owner of a condo at 120 N. Northwest Hwy. in Park Ridge. That would be the Uptown Redevelopment for those of you less numerically inclined.
It is an interesting trail of campaign contributions. But it is also perfectly reasonable that a resident of Park Ridge contributes to his perferred candidate.
Anon 3/25 @ 4:35 PM:
You’re reference to “ParkRidgeUnderground” and “Anon@4:48” is too cryptic/vague for us to have any idea from what specific info you derived your assertion that Mr. C “appears to be an owner of a condo at 120 N. Northwest Hwy.”
We still can’t find anything through any of the various white pages, Google, or otherwise – although we just heard that while it’s unclear whether Mr. C is actually living at 120 N. Northwest Hwy., he is throwing his weight around as if he’s at least an owner over there.
PRU:
With the exception of the first sentence, everything in my above post was copied and pasted from the PRU site. I am sorry if you saw that as cryptic.
Just to be clear – I asserted nothing. I read a post wondering “what’s that all about”, and remembered I had read something about that before. I shared the information stating clearly that I could not verify it (twice).
I was just trying to be helpful – oh well!
A6:10,
Watchdog will try not to be insulted by your salutation. We’re sure you meant no offense, and we too found ample reason to admire the work of the U’ground Crew.
Line and paragraph breaks automatic, e-mail address never displayed, HTML allowed:
<a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>